`Fake Media’ Versus Trump

By: Joe Mauricio

 

President Trump has repeatedly tweeted that news organizations are fake news. These actions have raised concerns about the press’s ability to fulfill its role in American democracy as a check on those in power — a role outlined in the First Amendment.

So how valid are the concerns about infringements on press freedom? How unusual is the President’s behavior toward the media? There always will be some tensions between the press and the White House that it covers. That’s normal. We are now experiencing that now with the Trump administration, and will experience that with whoever succeeds President Trump.

The political bias of the news madia has never been more outrageous than what we see in the press’s double standard for covering President Trump. For contrast that will make your head spin and your heart ache, compare Trump treatment of the press’s idolatrous treatment of President Obama.

The media fan club attitude toward Obama was unprecedented in the modern era. Not even JFK or war hero President Eisenhower got the kid’s glove treatment that Obama got.

President Trump is correct when he says that the public doesn’t believe the media anymore.

Neutrality may well be the most important word in a journalist’s vocabulary, democracies are in ferment in major countries, and globalization of information means biases can quickly travel across geographics. So, some pre-held, pre-fixed notions of Donald Trump are finding strong echoes even in the Indian media, writing on him.

But getting infected by such information bias is not smart journalism. The best antidote is a strong position of neutrality.

How does this work? Simple.

Look at every issue as it is, the why, the how, the when and the what, and don’t let who will be the dominant factor in analysis.As they say in football, good players play the ball, not the man.

On a leader like Trump, it is tempting and easy to play the man because the U.S. media can’t get enough of what it thinks are his dark personal traits. But it is precisely because Trump appears to be a break from the usual mold of leaders. It is important to play the ball.

Trump is renewing his attack on the media, hoping to discredit journalists who criticize his job performance as he approaches the 100-day mark of his presidency on April 29th, a traditional time for assessing any chief executive.

The “Fake Media” has gotten even worse since the election. Every story is badly slanted, we have to hold them to the truth.

Trump is attempting to inoculate himself against negative media reporting by saying the media can’t be trusted to cover him fairly. As part of that effort, he blasted the journalists for their coverage of a recent special election for a House seat in Kansas where Republican Rob Estes defeated Democrat James Thompson by 7% points. The recent Kansas election is a really big media event until the Republican won.

But the media intrigues of Trump are nearly everywhere, reflecting the traditional adversarial role of the news media in covering the country’s presidency.

Among the past presidents who also received harshly negative coverage at the start of their time in office was George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan. Bush and Reagan were Republicans and Clinton was a Democrat.

Trump has, for many months, condemned the “Fake Media” for being biased against him and for being the enemy of the American people. He has singled out the New York Times and CNN for specific criticisms. This won’t end any time soon because the media are really tempted to target a president who says he is at war with the Fourth Estate.